Tag Archives: family history

From December 1975 to June 1978 my wife and I lived in the upstairs suite in my parents home in Moose Jaw. I mostly went downtown to Jake Folk to get my hair cut. On occasion I went to Harold’s Hair Inn, just a block and a half from home. Despite the fancy name it was an ordinary barber shop where Harold Willfong gave the fastest haircuts in town.

In 1978 we moved to Ontario. When we came back to Saskatchewan 20 years later we settled in Saskatoon, but my Mom was still living in Moose Jaw. She was 90 years old by now and I made frequent visits to check up on her.

This was often an opportunity to get a haircut. Harold’s Hair Inn had moved to the basement of the Co-op shopping centre and Harold was semi-retired, only cutting hair three days a week. The other three days the cutting was done by another barber of the same age.

After a year or so we realized Mom couldn’t live on her own anymore and moved her to Saskatoon to live with us. That ended my Moose Jaw haircuts. Until Tuesday of this week.

We were in Moose Jaw for the funeral of a 94-year-old cousin and I hadn’t had time to get a haircut before going. The phone book said that Harold’s Hair Inn was still in the Co-op basement. This couldn’t possibly be the same Harold, he was already an old man the last time he gave me a haircut 18 years ago.

I went to the Co-op, walked down the stairs and looked in. It was the same Harold. He has to be at least 85 years old now. He’s not as fast as he used to be, but I got the best haircut I’ve had in years.

And we visited. Harold’s father was a half-brother to Art Wildfong, born at Hespeler, Ontario in 1895 and one of the pioneers of the Craik area where I grew up. Art Wildfong’s descendents still live and farm there.

Going even farther back, in the 1860’s there was a church of the Evangelical denomination located on the farm of John Hamacher near Baden, Ontario. John Hamacher’s wife was a Wildfong. Her neice, Susannah Wildfong, was married to Peter Wenger. The Wengers were also members of the Evangelical denomination. This was basically a German-language Methodist group, as the Methodist Church required all congregations to use the English language exclusively.

At some point in the late 1860’s Peter Wenger and his wife joined the Church of God in Christ, Mennonite. They moved first to the congregation at Wakarusa, Indiana. Then in 1874 they, and most of the Wakarusa congregation, moved to Hesston, Kansas, becoming the first congregation in that state. There are many descendents of Peter and Susannah Wenger in the church today, including a number of ministers.

Years ago I went to the Mennonite Historical Library in Waterloo and searched Ezra Eby’s Biographical History of Waterloo Township. That book says the Wildfong family came from Germany and were originally of the Moravian faith. I wonder if Harold knows anything about the family history that could connect the Wildfongs and Willfongs who came to Craik with Susannah Wildfong? I need to go back sometime for another haircut.

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